Matthew BaileyI’m going to start this review by saying that “Leaning Tower of Pizza” by Playte really took me by surprise and quite possibly is now one of our favourite small box dexterity games, and almost definitely the best tower stacking game we’ve played in a really long time.
The concept is really simple. Inside the box you get a load of cardboard pizza slices and a load of the little pizza saver things that you get when you buy pizza to stop the lid touching the pizza itself.
We start the game by placing all of those little pizza protectors on the table and putting one slice on top. On your turn, you take a pizza tower from any stack and place it on a higher stack. Most notably, it does not have to be taken from the top and can be taken from the middle if you so choose. You can even, if you wish, take another slice of pizza and lay it on top, although you do not have to, that is completely your choice.
This continues until everything falls down, Jenga style, with the winner being the person before the person who made the tower fall. This is a small rule, but it’s actually quite key, as one thing we always disliked in Jenga is the way you just have a loser rather than a winner. This also encourages more aggressive play, as you’re trying to get your opponent to find things difficult on their turn. It’s a small change, but it distinctively improves the way the game plays.
Basically, all I can say is that we super enjoyed this. One of the key things with dexterity games is their feel. Sometimes they’re too easy, sometimes they’re too hard, and this really hits the balance absolutely perfectly. I don’t know if it was intentional, but one of the cool things that worked really well is the fact the pizzas have folds in them in order to fit in the very small box, which is also a big positive. They kind of flop a bit like little pizzas do, and this can be used for both offensive and defensive play, making it harder for the opponent as well as helping you balance a tricky tower.
Component quality is really high. As always, Playte’s little boxes with their really nice little tags are visually appealing. Everything fits in a really small box and this could easily go in a handbag or be used for travel.
On the face of it, it’s Jenga with different components, but in reality this feels very different to a lot of other dexterity games, largely because the balance of difficulty is bang on. We really, really like this and would quite happily say this is one of my favourite stacking, if not maybe my absolute favourite stacking dexterity game, and definitely the best one you can put in a small travel form factor.
Massive recommendation if you’re going to be picking up any of the Playte games either before or at UK Games Expo 2026, this is definitely one I would consider. Although it is quite a large box compared to the other ones, so if you are thinking of doing the case deal, I would probably get this one separately and get smaller box games in that case.
